40 new students from 13 Brazilian states make up Ilum’s second class: 50% public school alumni and 37.5% from the Northeast
The Ilum School of Science at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) welcomed the 40 successful candidates who will comprise its second class. A total of 1,185 candidates applied for these slots. Of the candidates that were successful in the first round, 37.5% are from Brazil’s Northeast region, and the new students come from 13 different states.
Classes begin March 6 on the Ilum campus in Campinas, São Paulo. Ilum’s undergraduate program in science and technology is free for students, approved by the Ministry of Education, and was awarded the highest score by the Brazilian National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP).
“There are very talented students throughout Brazil, with a true vocation for science, and we are very pleased to have this diversity among the incoming candidates and to be able to help develop this potential,” says Ilum director Adalberto Fazzio.
Júlia came from the state of Sergipe to get her bachelor’s degree in science and technology, and shared her expectations for the course: “I learned about Ilum through the recommendation of a friend, since the Science Capsule visited Lagarto, in the interior of Sergipe. This capsule event involved publicity about projects at the CNPEM and introduced the bachelor’s degree program, its advantages, and everything that is offered to us as students, which got me interested. I’m very excited to get my degree and I have very positive expectations with regard to actually getting into the area of research, so from the moment I begin to study here I am very aware of this issue of producing science, producing research, and making some kind of contribution, not just for me but also for the entire community.”
Ilum 2023 incoming class/Photo credit: Publicity/CNPEM
An innovative school
Ilum is a school born out of a pioneering plan to teach science in order to train a new generation of scientists and researchers, as well as specialists in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science, in a fast-track full-time program over three years of instruction. The methodology is also innovative, based on active learning and projects focused around solving problems in an interdisciplinary manner.
“The issues that challenge science today, in health, the climate, agriculture, material development, and various other areas, require a scientist who can think about solutions not separated into disciplines, but considering all areas together, because they involve various fields of knowledge. For example, the climate involves math, chemistry, biology, even the humanities, with its impact on populations. We want our students to be prepared to address these issues, to be professionals prepared for the future,” adds Fazzio.
Education at Ilum is based on building a strong foundation in the different areas of the sciences and mathematics and then putting these concepts into practice. From the beginning of the course, students have access to the school’s advanced teaching laboratories, with equipment that includes atomic force and tunneling and optic microscopes, Raman spectrometers, computation laboratories and wet labs. “Our students will have all the structure they need to become researchers from the very first semester of their course,” notes Nelson Studart, academic coordinator at Ilum.
The program also includes immersions at the CNPEM, Brazil’s largest research infrastructure, where they will have direct contact with researchers and groundbreaking projects and can use the most modern laboratories to carry out their own work. “This is a unique opportunity. Not only will they be in direct contact with cutting-edge research, they will also be able to network with hundreds of scientists. In other countries, you can generally only go into a CNPEM-level lab on a tour,” says Fazzio.
Incoming students are provided with room, board, and transport to Ilum and the CNPEM campus at no cost. They are welcome to move into student housing as early as March 3, when enrollment begins. At the start of the program, the students also will receive a laptop with all the software they will need for their studies.
Services
Bachelor’s Degree in Science, Technology, and Innovation
Program duration: three years
Location: Rua Lauro Vannucci, 1.020, Parque Santa Cândida, Campinas-SP
Infrastructure: the campus covers 2100 m2, a two-story building with four classrooms that include workstations for groups of six students and audiovisual and multimedia resources, a wet lab, a dry lab for practical activities in physics and computing, a special equipment laboratory (with atomic force and tunneling microscopes and a Raman spectrometer), a biomicroscopy lab dedicated to biological studies, a studio for recording and editing video, a study center, library, and a lounge with a snack bar.
About the Ilum School of Science
The Ilum School of Science, an initiative of the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM), a social organization under the oversight of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), offers unique training for future scientists. This non-profit degree program is free for students and funded by the Ministry of Education (MEC); its first class entered in 2022. Ilum offers a full-time bachelor’s program in Science and Technology over a three-year period. This course was granted the highest score possible by the Brazilian National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP), and provides a solid scientific foundation in an interdisciplinary course and immersion in the CNPEM from the first semester. The curriculum spans disciplines in the life sciences, materials science, mathematics, and the humanities for a truly integrated educational experience based on ethics and cooperation in the search for answers and solutions to global problems in the modern world.
